Dedicated to Chloe Beale
by bduefbfsy
Summary: George Watsky has a song called Dedicated to Christina Li. It's a super sad song, but I needed to write some angst. So unless you want to feel kinda shitty for the rest of your day, I suggest not to read this. If you want a warning of what you're about to read and how sad it's going to be, listen to the song. (one-shot)


**"Dedicated To Christina Li"**

_**[Verse 1:]**_

**The first time I went back to homeroom from the hospital**

**I thought that being more embarrassed was impossible**

**But God, the second time it really turned my stomach**

**Now I'm the kid who collapses and then spazzes out in public**

Beca Mitchell had begged her mother the whole way to school to turn the car around. Elaina Mitchell however was persistent that her daughter returned to school. It had been rough finding out her daughter a epileptic at such a young age. The first seizure she ever witnessed her daughter having had almost given her a heart attack. She was lucky enough that it hit when Beca was already sitting in a hospital bed awaiting results of the tests they had run. Elaina had grown concerned when she had ask her nine year old daughter how school was and half way through explaining their activities and the new red card/orange card/green card system her teacher had developed the little brunette seemed to stop speaking and daze off. Her mouth hung open and she seemed to just lose concentration. And then again a few weeks later when she had gone upstairs to ask her daughter to clean her room. The child was suddenly taken over with terror and clutched her stomach mid conversation. Being the worrying first time mother she was, she was quick to schedule an appointment with the local hospital. As Elaina sat in the chair trying to comfort her pouting daughter she experienced what could easily have been the most frightening moment of her life.

"I don't wanna be here!" The little child crossed her arms and huffed.

"Baby, just do this for mommy okay? Then I'll take you out to get ice cream."

The little brunette sighed again and Elaina looked at her child. She frowned, Beca's finger on her left hand was twitching jerkily. And before she knew it her daughter's eyes rolled back as her neck snapped backwards and she fell onto the bed. Her whole body twitching dangerously. Elaina screamed and ran towards her child.

"Beca? Beca baby?"

The nurses rushed in upon hearing the woman's frightful cry and they asked her to step back. And all Elaina Mitchell could do was stand back as she watched nurses and a doctor hold down her daughter and inject something in her arm. With that Beca's body seemed to calm. That was the day her learned her child was epileptic. And she had smiled for her daughter the whole way home. She got the child ice cream as she had promised. And when she tucked the young girl in for bed, with a final kiss on her forehead, she trudged into her room and broke down into tears. What had she done wrong? Why was it her angel? What would happen to Beca? She had decided to retain the normality in the young girls life. She was not going to pull her out of school, but she spoke with the school principal and the school nurse to inform them. She had a particularly difficult conversation with her child trying to explain to her what to expect and how to best deal with it. She became in expert in epilepst.

**This time was a bowling alley, the first was in the yard**

**And kids in middle school just watched me trip and kicked me hard**

Beca was maturing at a rate much quicker than those around her. At the news of what her body might do to her, she had begun to close herself off to making friends. She learned to be self sufficient. She wanted to prove her body wrong, and she grew a determined heart to show the world that she was not to be defined by her condition. It doesn't mean it didn't happen. Her classmates had seen her have seizures more than she would have liked. But childhood cruelty could not afford young Beca Mitchell the chance of keeping her dignity. She felt the familiar impending doom, the dizziness hit her and she bit her cheek hard trying to fight it off. But she knew she had to let it in. It was recess and she had been sitting on the bench reading a book, she didn't try to hard to play with the other children. She stumbled to her feet desperately hoping to get to a teacher before it hit her. But then everything went black. She felt the ground beneath her hit her. She remembered waking up to the sound of an adult's angry voice.

"Step back immediately. You're all going to the principal's office right away! That is no way to treat your classmates."

She groggily opened her eyes having no recollection of what happened to her. She just remembered the ground coming at her at a high velocity. As her vision cleared she saw the playground monitor kneeling down towards her.

"Beca, darling? Are you alright? Come on, I'll take you to see the nurse."

Beca moved to take the hand offered to her but gasped in pain as her sides ached.

"What happened?" her little voice trembled with pain.

The playground monitor an elementary school teacher named Ms. Moody wanted to help the child. In fact she had been fighting back tears of her own. Imagine her surprise to find a group of children running over gleefully towards a crumpled figure. She had started walking over wondering what was happening. She had witnessed bullying but this made her blood boil. As she got closer she saw the small brunette child Beca, the young girl who spent her time sitting and reading during playgrounds on the floor. And above her were children kicking her small unconscious body. She broke out into a mad spring warning the children immediately to back away. She took notes of the children standing over the young girl remember each one of them to report them after. She scooped of the small brunette in her arms.

"Darling you had a seizure."

Beca usually fought to walk on her own, she didn't want to seem weak, but she was in pain. So she allowed Ms. Moody to carry her to the nurses office.

**Except this girl named Crissie Li, who flips around at her desk**

**And gives me the world's biggest Disney card**

**Wrote "best wishes," and "kisses" where she signed it**

**3 feet by 2 feet, I coulda hid behind it**

**I didn't like the pity from Christina Li though**

**I'm thinking "Crissie, can't you see I'm busy being emo?"**

'**Cause I think I mighta heard she maybe sorta liked me**

**And since she wasn't cool enough I guess I took it lightly**

**Had braces and glasses and wasn't Ms. Popular**

**And so I didn't really give a thought to her**

To say Elaina Mitchell was enraged was an understatement. One might have called her possessed, or spawn of the devil. She had stormed into school after receiving a call from Ms. Moody and the principal. Beca having a seizure in school she had expected, but children hurting her baby as she had lay crumpled. What child was so heartless? She stormed into the office demanding to see each and everyone of the parents of the children. The principal for his part scampered away his tail between his legs and made the arrangements. She had talked to the young brunette about home schooling and was surprised by how vehemently against it Beca was. She didn't want to force anything, but she sure as hell wouldn't let that happen again. She had a frightening talk with the parents of the children with Ms. Moody at her side to back her story. Each one of them seemed shamed and embarrassed by their child's actions and demanded their child apologize to Beca. It was an awkward exchange for the children really. A half-hearted disgruntled apology and Beca rolling her eyes at them. When Beca returned to school the next day she sat at her assigned seat in the second row. A young girl who sat in front of her named Chloe turned around. Her red hair always distracted Beca, she always wondered how one was born with such vividly colored hair. Her bright blue eyes on Beca she gave her a cheerful friendly smile. Beca was taken aback, she had never received such smiles from anyone but teachers. From her classmates it was always sneers, but here was Chloe Beale, the girl with fiery red locks giving her a winning shining smile. The redhead pulled a large Disney card from the side of her desk and stood it in front of the brunette. Standing in her seat to open in Beca read, "Best wishes and kisses, Chloe" in bright pink. She wanted to smile back at the redhead. In fact that card was so large that she could have hidden behind it. But she had a hardened heart now. The other children seemed harmless until she had fallen unconscious. They had hurt her and laughed, they hadn't even tried to apologize had it not been for her parents. She looked up at the redhead again, her braces shining at her smile, her eyes enlarged by her glasses. She returned a grimaced smile out of obligation and sat back down.

_**[Hook:]**_

**A heart breaking sounds like guitar strings snapping**

**It's the notes of the song that'll never happen**

**And the wind in the leaves is the sound of ghosts clapping**

**But a heart breaking sounds like guitar strings snapping**

Chloe Beale the little redhead turned back and sat in her seat a little upset by the reaction. She sighed. She hadn't expected the brunette to take her hand and ask her to be her girlfriend, but it would have been nice. She liked Beca, a lot. She was pretty. And she was nice. And she had heard what the other children had done. She didn't know what happened really. She just was told that Beca fell asleep and the other kids kicked her until she woke up. But it made her little fists shake in anger. She was hoping the card would get a bigger smile from the brunette who seemed to keep her heart locked away. But she had not. She had given her back a barely there smile. She sighed again.

_**[Verse 2:]**_

**There's holes in my memory - it isn't photographic**

**There's holes in my yearbook but the cut-out folks were plastic**

**Ten years pass, I don't cross paths**

**With half the people from my class again 'til we meet at Crissie's open casket**

It was ten years later. Beca was 19 and had learned how to better take care of herself with her condition. She had learned much more about herself, and in her time she did occasionally think about Chloe Beale the little redhead that had been there for her when no one else was. She also remembered how she had not returned the affection and it bit into her everyday. She had kept the Disney card, after a particularly hard trip home on the bus with such a large card she had shown her mother. It now sat in her dorm room in college. It was one of her many prized possessions. In the brunette's mind, this was her first missed opportunity. A friend she never made. But she didn't know what to say. She was ten years too late to call up Chloe Beale and tell her thank you for the card. She was ten years too late tell her she was sorry for reacting horrible. And after receiving a sickening letter in the mail inviting her to a memorial service. She felt a heavy weight drop upon her heart. She was ten years too late to do anything at all.

**Those who chose to ask it probably knew**

**I could have dug in deeper if I'd wanted to**

**But you couldn't tell a thing was off on the surface**

**And I didn't know she was sick until I heard about her service**

Beca arrived dressed in black. She recognized some of the people there. A few students from elementary that knew Chloe. And huddled in the front row was a woman with red hair just like Chloe's and a man with rich blue eyes that Beca would remember forever huddled in their seats weeping away. Beca walked up towars the open casket unsure of her steps. She took a deep breath and held it as she peered in. The red haired girl with a beautiful heart had grown into a gorgeous woman with looks to rival her heart. Her features were soft and she looked peaceful. Her eyes closed as she lay on her back, arms crossed across her stomach. Beca bit back the anger she felt at herself. She was too late to do anything for Chloe Beale, the girl that gave her a shining hope. She heard people talking to Chloe's parents and what she heard made her frown.

**She was born with a heart defect, used to the cold knife**

**She'd been in and out of hospitals her whole life**

**She knew the whole time, and never said why**

**She felt my pain herself and helped me hold my head high**

It was the usual, so sorry for your loss talk. But every now and then someone would approach them with a sullen look.

"She fought hard, I know she had a bad heart."

The redheaded woman weeped harder as she pushed the words out, "she was so close to getting a new one too. She was moving up on the donor list."

Beca's heart was taking a beating. She had felt the guilt before from her cold actions to the young girl in her classroom with the big smile and an even bigger Disney card. Chloe Beale understood Beca more than anyone. Chloe Beale had spent her life in and out of hospitals much like Beca. Chloe didn't even know that when Chloe was out of school for a week, she was in heart surgery. The teacher told them she was sick, and Beca assumed she just had the flu. Chloe Beale better than any other child in the class understood Beca's life was hard, but she never told Beca. She never approached the brunette with her sob story, no. All Chloe Beale did was what Chloe Beale did best. She helped the brunette hold her head high. She helped the brunette smile. And Beca wished so hard that someone would punish her for being horrible to such a beautiful soul. She wanted nothing more than to go back to that moment in third grade and give Chloe a hug. And be friends with her. Be there for her like she ahd been there for Beca.

**The nicest folks are those who know the throes of crisis**

**Though I know it's crime to twist her life to fit my own devices**

**Why's it so hard to mourn, and then try to learn by this**

**But lights that burn shortest**

**Are the lights that burn brightest**

The priest delivered a speech quoting the bible, and telling everyone there that Chloe was in the better place. Then the eulogies came and Beca felt the hot tears run down her face.

"She was a beautiful person, she was always so willing to help people." Chloe's mother went on.

"She wanted to help the beggars once, but I had told her to not give them a dollar. I told her, he's smoking a cigarette, he might just use our dollar to buy more. So she went home and made a sandwich and brought it to him the next day at the same street corner. That was the kind of person Chloe was."

Beca couldn't meet Mrs. Beale's face. She felt guilty. She felt worthless. She knew more than anyone what it felt like to be hurt when you were already hurting, and this is what she had done to Chloe Beale. The eulogies went on and Beca sat through it. She wanted to leave, but she felt if she could do something small for Chloe Beale, she would sit through her funeral.

_**[Verse 3:]**_

**Our 8th grade yearbook page for dedicating songs wasn't long**

**Even in a school eleven hundred strong**

**The yearbook advertised for months, but when it's said and done**

**Crissie bought six, the third most of anyone**

**Alvin got "Your Faith in Me" by Jessica Simpson**

**Pebbles got Richard Marx's ballad "At the Beginning"**

Beca got back to her dorm room her emotions drained, but it was as if she was addicted to the despair now. She made a beeline to her books and shuffled through them until she found her 8th grade yearbook. She flipped through it and smiled a sad smile at the small picture of Chloe. She had gotten rid of her braces. Now all that remained of the redhead's formative years were those glasses perched on her nose. She flipped to the song dedication page. It wasn't long considering the size of her school. But Chloe had bought the most of anyone. She remembered through the years the many times Chloe Beale had reached out to her. And it wasn't until Beca had moved with her mother after her parent's divorce that she started opening up a bit more. Moving gave her a new place to start, she didn't feel like the pathetic kid that got beat up at the playground while having a seizure. She started new, and made friends, this had opened up a whole new side of Beca Mitchell. A side of her that Chloe Beale never got to see. The side of her that Chloe Beale deserved the most of anyone. All through elementary and middle school Chloe had tried to show her affections to the aloof brunette. And Beca never in her life felt so selfish and so low.

**It feels like sloppy poetry the way her life would end**

**After sending Mariah Carrey's "Any Time You Need a Friend"**

**But corniness is honesty that's wrapped in cliché**

**And most slow jam lyrics aren't shit I'm brave enough to say without a smirk**

Beca read down the list and she almost had to laugh at the irony of the songs Chloe had bought. If it didn't hurt so much she just may have. She looked over at the Disney card still sitting in the corner of her room and looked at the name of the song again, "Anytime You Need a Friend." Moving to her laptop she pulled up the song by Mariah Carey and listened to it as melancholy washed over her.

**But before she went to dirt she left us finally**

**"I Will Remember You" to Geoff, Mike, Bry and me**

**You can plot if you must**

**Say it's obviously fate, or explain that God is just**

**But all I know is that until my body's dust**

**I will try to think of her as much as Crissie thought of us**

Beca closed her eyes sitting on her bed for a bit, listening to the music. Marveling in the ways her life had changed. Berating herself in the things she could have done. She walked over towards the Disney card and smiled to herself through her tears and she traced the childlike handwriting scrawled across the card in Chloe's pink marker. "Best wishes and kisses Chloe Beale. I will try to think of you as much as you thought of me."


End file.
